Tag Archives: Star Alliance

Good news for all fans of Central America: Lufthansa will include the Frankfurt – San José connection in their summer 2018 flight schedule. From 29 March 2018, a non-stop Lufthansa flight will take off every Thursday and Saturday from Frankfurt to the capital city of Costa Rica, the ‘green paradise of Central America’. The connection is thus the second connection offered non-stop by the company from Frankfurt to this region – the first being the connection from Frankfurt to Panama. Both connections complement each other perfectly. So you can now jet off to San José seven times a week from Frankfurt: twice non-stop with Lufthansa, or five times via Panama with a short flight with Lufthansa’s partner Copa Airlines.

Costa Rica combines fascinating landscapes, cloud forests, Caribbean flair and heavenly beaches with impressive national parks and rain forests, and is therefore especially popular with travellers who value ecologically important tourism.

Flights to San José use an Airbus A340-300, which has 279 seats covering Business Class, Premium Economy and Economy Class. LH518 leaves the Lufthansa Frankfurt hub at 13:45 and arrives in San José in the late afternoon at 17:55 local time. The return flight takes off from San José in the evening at 19:50 and lands at Frankfurt Airport the following day at 15:10 after a flight time of around 11 hours.

For more information and to book Lufthansa flights, go to LH.com on the Internet or call the Lufthansa Service Center on +49 (0) 69 86 799 799 (fixed line rate). Flights can also be booked at Lufthansa travel agency partners, as well as at Lufthansa sales counters at the airport.

Lufthansa is launching seven new winter destinations starting at the end of October: Pamplona, Genoa, Bari and Catania are the new destinations available from Frankfurt. The offer from Munich will be extended to include Nantes, Glasgow and Santiago de Compostela as further attractive city connections.

Pamplona is on the Lufthansa flight schedule for the first time ever. From 6 November onwards, the city in northern Spain will be connected with four weekly flights from Frankfurt. Furthermore, Genoa, Bari and Catania will be new winter destinations available from Frankfurt. Lufthansa customers can reach all three Italian cities up to three times per week. The flights depart starting on 29 October and will expand on the services already offered from Munich.

Due to high demand, Lufthansa will also fly to Nantes, Glasgow and Santiago de Compostela from Munich for the first time in winter. There are daily flights to Nantes in western France, with flights to Glasgow four times a week. The Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela is on the flight schedule every Sunday and thus expands the services on offer from Frankfurt.

The new winter destinations are now available to book, with fares starting from 119 euros for a return flight. For more information and to book Lufthansa flights, go to LH.com or call the Lufthansa Service Center on +49 (0) 69 86 799 799 (fixed line rate) Flights can also be booked at Lufthansa travel agency partners, as well as at Lufthansa sales counters at the airport.

The new connections at a glance

Frankfurt – Pamplona (PNA)
Four times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday) from 6 November 2017

Frankfurt – Genoa (GOA)
Three times a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) from 29 October 2017)

Frankfurt – Bari (BRI)
Three times a week (Monday, Thursday and Saturday from 29 October 2017)

The FC Bayern Airbus will be sporting its new design for the first time when it sets off on a twelve-day journey across Asia for the “Audi Summer Tour 2017”. The journey to Shanghai, Shenzhen and Singapore have been chosen to mark the updating of the old FC Bayern livery. As well as the FC Bayern logo, a total of ten players have been depicted on the aircraft’s fuselage: Joshua Kimmich, Franck Ribéry, Thomas Müller, Javi Martínez and Arjen Robben, and, shown in sporting action: Robert Lewandowski, David Alaba, Manuel Neuer, Thiago and Mats Hummels. The Lufthansa Airbus A340-600, bearing the registration D-AIHZ, will be in service for flights from Munich for a further year in this new design, flying to four different continents.

Lufthansa has been the official carrier of FC Bayern since 2004. As well as its long-standing collaboration with FC Bayern, the airline also has partnership agreements with the German Football Association (DFB) and is involved with numerous other popular sports. In addition to this, the airline supports the German Sports Aid Foundation as a national sponsor, and has also been a partner of the German Olympic Sports Association (DOSB) for many years. This traditionally includes the transportation of the German teams to the Olympic Games and also to the Paralympics, as a partner of the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS).

Lufthansa expands its route network and will offer new intercontinental destinations from Frankfurt and Munich in summer 2018.

New from Frankfurt Hub:
San Diego (USA) is the second largest city in the U.S. state of California and eighth overall in the Unites States. The city is located in southwest California, close to the Mexican border. Due to the pleasant climate, San Diego is known as „America’s Finest City“ by its residents. The beaches and waves of the Pacific are particularly suitable for surfing. The city is also a hotspot for the biotech and telecommunications industry. Beginning in summer 2018, Lufthansa will offer five weekly San Diego flights from Frankfurt.

New from Munich Hub:
Likewise in summer 2018, Lufthansa will reintroduce the Singapore route into its flight schedule from Munich. Five times a week, passengers will be able to fly from the Bavarian capital to the lively economic metropolis in Asia. At the same time, Lufthansa will offer more additional flights from Munich to Chicago, USA. Instead of seven times a week, Lufthansa will fly from Bavaria to the „Windy City“ ten times per week.

Good news for Airbus A380 Fans in Munich: Starting in summer 2018, Lufthansa will introduce the Airbus A380 in Munich on long-haul destinations to Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Beijing. For this reason, Lufthansa will transfer five of its 14 Airbus A380s from Frankfurt to Munich. As a result up to 500 new positions will be staffed in Bavaria.

“With the A380 we can offer our Munich customers a premium aircraft at a 5-Star Hub,“ said Harry Hohmeister, member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG and responsible for Hub Management. “In recent years, we have made great progress in steering our hubs. We harmonized and integrated processes and are now more flexible in utilizing our aircraft at different locations. Quality, efficiency and growth will always remain our top priority.”

Lufthansa is showing a clear sign for continued growth in Bavaria. Over the next two years, the Lufthansa long-haul fleet in Munich will be receiving two more aircraft.

Lufthansa has been voted the “Best Airline in Europe”. The award was given at the Paris Air Show on 20 June 2017 in Le Bourget. The market research institute Skytrax, which specializes in aviation, surveyed around 18 million passengers from over 160 countries worldwide.

In the survey, passengers from across the globe spoke in favour of the German premium carrier, thus acknowledging the services offered by Lufthansa. Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO at Deutsche Lufthansa AG: “The service offered by our crews on board and on the ground as well as our investments over the past few years in the fitting of our cabins and lounges, in addition to the service and digitalization, have paid off. The Skytrax Award is evidence that Lufthansa passengers appreciate our quality. The combination of premium service and excellent facilities has impressed passengers worldwide and made us Europe’s number one. Our offer has never been better.” On receipt of the award, Carsten Spohr thanked the employees of Lufthansa in particular, who made this success possible with their excellent work.

Lufthansa also won the award of “Best Airline in Western Europe” as well as the award “Best First Class Lounge Dining”. Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines had been nominated for the award as “Best Airline in Western Europe”. Austrian Airlines won the “Best Airline Staff Service in Europe” award for its employees.

The survey was carried out by the market research institute Skytrax, which specializes in aviation. As part of this, the services on board as well as the airline services at the airports were rated. Skytrax has been carrying out the annual survey since 1999.

Austrian Airlines was named the European champion in 2017 for its service for the fourth year in a row. The national airline once again achieved a top ranking in the renowned SKYTRAX World Airline Awards 2017 bestowed upon the winners in Paris on June 20, 2017. The Austrian Airlines team won the title “Best Airline Staff Service in Europe”, which applies to both its flight crew as well as its staff on the ground.

“Service is a matter of course for us despite price competition”, says Austrian Airlines CCO Andreas Otto, who personally accepted the award in Paris on behalf of the airline. We are very pleased to be recognized as European champion in this category for the fourth straight year. We want to thank our customers for their appreciation and our employees for their commitment and customer orientation”.

In its 20th Anniversary year, Star Alliance has claimed the Best Airline Alliance title at the Skytrax World Airline Awards for the second year running. The Alliance’s prestigious Los Angeles Lounge also received the Best Airline Alliance Lounge Award for the third year in row.

Accepting the award at the Paris – Le Bourget Air Show, Jeffrey Goh, CEO Star Alliance said: “This is an important accolade to receive in our 20th Anniversary year. It once again shows that our investment into a modern IT infrastructure is paying off, enabling the more than 440,000 member airline employees to provide customers with an even better Alliance travel experience. Our IT hubs are the foundation which will allow us to use digital technology to offer a more individual and a better Alliance travel experience going forward.”

Star Alliance was the first airline alliance to receive the Best Alliance Award from Skytrax when the category was first introduced in 2005 and has since held the award eight times.

The World Airline Awards are managed by international air transport rating organisation, Skytrax Research of London, UK. The latest survey was conducted between August 2016 and May 2017, attracting 19.87 million eligible entries with participants from 105 nationalities. The survey covered over 325 airlines, from largest international airlines to smaller domestic carriers, measuring quality standards for 41 Key Performance Indicators across front-line product and service factors in the Airport and On-board environments.

Complementing the Alliance awards, 13 Star Alliance member carriers received distinctions in 26 individual categories, with four achieving top 10 rankings in the Top Airline Category: Singapore Airlines (2), ANA (3), EVA (6) and Lufthansa (7).